1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to catalyst and, more particularly, to an apparatus for testing catalyst.
2. Related Prior Art
Since the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, people have been using machines that consume large amounts of energy. Fossil fuels have energized the development of human societies. The use of the fossil fuel has however entailed global warming. As attempts to reduce the global warming, there have been exploited various energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, bio-fuels and hydrogen. The density of the solar energy is low, and the production of solar cells for using the solar energy is not environmentally friendly. The stability of the wind energy is poor. The bio-fuels compete against food regarding the raw materials. Hydrogen seems to be the most promising energy source among these energy sources for several reasons. At first, hydrogen exhibits a high energy density compared with the solar energy. Secondly, hydrogen excellent stability compared with the wind energy. Thirdly, hydrogen does not entail food shortage like the bio-fuels.
The production of hydrogen is important. The resultant hydrogen can be used in various fuel cells among which solid oxide fuel cells seem to be the most important. Hydrogen can be made of methane, methanol, ethanol, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (“LPG”) and gasoline for example. These raw materials can be recombined at high temperatures to produce hydrogen. Catalysts are an important factor for the production of hydrogen. With excellent catalysts and proper operative conditions, high yields (Y %) of hydrogen and high conversion rates (X %) of hydrogen are achieved.
Hence, it is important to test the performance of the catalysts. There have been various apparatuses for testing the catalysts. These conventional catalyst-testing apparatuses however only accept gaseous raw materials. As a raw material, water has to be heated and turned into steam before it can be introduced into a conventional catalyst-testing apparatus, mixed with natural gas and air, and turned into a reformate by a catalyst. It is inconvenient to use an independent heater to heat and turn the water into the steam and then introduce the steam into the conventional apparatus.
The present invention is therefore intended to obviate or at least alleviate the problems encountered in prior art.